


the world is gonna bend

by Lauren (notalwaysweak)



Series: Maya Koothrappali [1]
Category: Big Bang Theory
Genre: Coming Out, F/M, Transgendered Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-09
Updated: 2011-06-09
Packaged: 2017-10-20 06:43:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/209864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notalwaysweak/pseuds/Lauren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A lot of people’s lives change when they move overseas. The biggest change to Raj’s is when she realizes she’s not a man after all. Warning: contains transphobic references and related potentially triggering material.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. open up your heart and your mind

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Queer Fest 2011 prompt _Any Fandom: any character, the character is revealed to have been crossdressing for some reason, but after the revelation goes on with it- because ze's found hirself realising ze's trans._ Raj frequently canonically crossdresses for cons, that’s no revelation, but nonetheless I hope this has somewhat met the prompt. Season four AU; some events are referenced and some are not, but since the show itself is terrible at continuity I hope this is forgivable.
> 
>  _The Big Bang Theory_ characters belong to Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady and no money is being made off this work of fan fiction. Wil Wheaton belongs to himself; the opinions and feelings attributed herein to evil!Wil are in no way meant to represent real!Wil’s opinions and feelings. The title and chapter headers are lyrics from Lady Gaga’s “So Happy I Could Die” with a little rearranging.
> 
> My deepest thanks go out to [afullmargin](http://archiveofourown.org/users/anemptymargin) for her thorough and gleeful beta, and to [kittyburger](http://kittyburger.livejournal.com/profile/) for her excellent, thoughtful remarks. For what’s right, thank them; for what’s wrong, blame me. Thanks also to Caltech for having their equal opportunity employment policy available online, and everyone who put up with me while I was rambling about this on Twitter and LJ.
> 
> Dedicated to Katie, my sweet sister. Blessed be.

Raj Koothrappali has three brothers and two sisters.

Raj’s sister Priya also has three brothers and two sisters. She thinks she has four brothers, one of whom occasionally dresses oddly, and one sister, but she’s wrong.

Solve for _x_? Simple. _X_ in this case is the second _X_ chromosome that Raj’s brain got and body didn’t. It’s an easy enough equation on paper. The trouble is the real-life application of the theory.

* * *

“You cosplay as a girl a lot,” Howard casually remarks one night when they’re flipping through comics at the Comic Center. “How come?”

“I’m bucking the trend, dude.”

“You’re really not, you know. Heaps of guys dress as girls. It’s not original anymore.”

Raj shrugs uncomfortably. “At least I rock it.”

“True, true.” Howard drops it there. Raj is relieved.

The relief fades when the realization sinks in: it’s not playing.

Ironically enough, it’s Raj’s birthday.

* * *

Every time Raj gets home from a con and has to take her costume off she feels like she’s peeling away her real skin to put a fake one on.

Every time Raj goes to work, covered in layers of shirts and vests, she watches other women walking around in skirts and heels, and some days when her thoughts are churning particularly quickly she goes into the (wrong) bathroom, locks herself in a stall, and tries not to cry too loudly. At least she can pretend her eyes are red from too much squinting into telescopes.

Every time Raj can spend a few hours at home, lounging in the sari she had to pretend that she was buying for her mother and playing video games or just watching television, she starts to feel almost all right.

In the end the internet tells her where she needs to go, the steps it will take to make her outside match her inside.

Her palms are sweating and she can barely breathe, her stupid bulky man-clothes constrict her chest, but she’s too scared to wear the sari out of her apartment yet. She has to run back inside once anyway to pee one more time before she can get going.

Her new therapist ushers her into the small office, shows her to a seat, and says, “So, what brings you here?” as though she hadn’t already filled out a questionnaire that the therapist has sitting right there on her desk.

Raj picks at a loose thread on her vest and says, “I’m a woman.”

* * *

Getting her chest and legs waxed is easily accomplished; they’re in California, after all, where you’re the strange one if you _don’t_ get something waxed or plucked or trimmed or tucked on a regular basis, and her waxer never asks questions, not even as the days get shorter and cooler.

It’s the tiny dark dots of beard stubble that frustrate her the most. She leans in close to the mirror every morning, scrapes with the razor until it hurts, and gets her skin smooth for a little while, but by evening those little dots are back again and she just wants to sandpaper them away.

Her therapist, the one she’s seeing when everyone else thinks she’s at Pilates, talks about laser hair removal. Raj takes a look at the price list and wonders aloud whether taking her chances down at Leonard’s lab mightn’t be worth it.

“Are you out to Leonard and your other friends yet?” her therapist asks, as she has asked every week for seven weeks.

Raj looks down at her hands and starts picking the temporary decals off her fingernails. It’s all the answer she can currently give.

“You know that technically I can’t start you on HRT until you start presenting full-time as a woman, right?”

Raj gives her an even stare. “You know that I have friends in the pharmacology department, right?”

Her therapist objects strenuously to being thus blackmailed, but ends up writing the prescription anyway.

* * *

HRT. MTF. SRS. LHR. AAB. RLE. DSM. FFS. It’s like swimming in a sea of alphabet soup and some days it’s unbearable and some days it’s all the promises in the world condensed into three little letters. Raj has online friends like her who can sympathize and understand about all the barriers on the way to making their outsides match their insides, who know all about those sets of three little letters.

 _Hey Rajya, don’t you ever think about picking a name that’s further away from your slave name?_ Danielle asks.

 _I did. I thought about it a lot. I still do. But Rajya means “hopeful”. It comes from Arabic originally._

 _That is so cool!_

They’ve all read a lot of naming websites. Raj is now pretty sure she can reel off the meanings and origins of the names of everyone she knows. Maybe if they’re ever short on conversational topics one day she can bring up how Leonard, Howard, and Bernadette’s names all partly share an origin, although if she has to say that it’s the Germanic “hard” she can imagine the conversation devolving courtesy of Howard and, just, no.

Karla sends her a private message titled *hugs* that’s all about her own choice of name and how it’s not so different from her birth name either and how she totally gets what Raj is doing.

Some of the women start calling her “Hope”, and Raj doesn’t mind that. Not as a nickname, anyway. She’s adamant about sticking with Rajya, though. She’s not transitioning from being Indian, after all.

 _So how did you come out to your friends?_ she finally asks on chat one day, and is flooded with a barrage of responses, some negative, some positive, all different.

The best way, in the end, seems to be to just do it.

* * *

“I’m really pleased that you’re making this step.”

Raj crosses her legs at the knee and fiddles with the hem of her long, flowing skirt. “I’m still nervous.”

Her therapist makes a note of this on her omnipresent notepad and then smiles. “Judging from what you’ve told me about your friends, it sounds like you won’t have much to worry about.”

“Are you kidding me? Sheldon gets angry if he has to eat the wrong cereal for breakfast, let alone finding out one of his friends isn’t actually a guy.”

Her therapist raises an eyebrow. “Did you just compare yourself to cereal?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Well, you can’t have your entire support network consist of online friends when you’re presenting full-time in public.”

“I wish you wouldn’t say that. I’m not ‘presenting’ anything. This is who I am.”

Her therapist gives her another eyebrow raise for that. “Rajya, you told me yourself that you got teased as a child for being a nerd—”

“—as a child. And last Wednesday. Yes.”

“—so you know that it helps to have people to turn to for support.”

Raj looks down at her hands. She can’t stop doing it when she’s nervous. She looks at how her fingernails are too wide and square and, although her fingers are sort of long, they still look mannish.

“I’m afraid they won’t support me,” she says quietly.

“I know. Believe me, I know.”

“Then how can you be so damn happy that I’m taking this step?” Raj snaps.

Her therapist looks out the window for a moment. The office is two floors up and overlooks a currently empty park; lackluster rain drizzles from the grey sky onto a playset surrounded by weeds.

“Because I’ve seen what can happen when people don’t,” she says at last.


	2. I am as vain as I allow (don’t give up baby)

It’s Halo night. Raj has been on HRT for two months. Her hair is only just down past her ears, but with a blue Penny Blossom clipped above one ear the dark waves soften. She shaves, curses the razor and the mirror and the blood dribbling down her cheek, and manages to stop the bleeding with a swatch of toilet paper.

She’d ended up Skyping with Janet when it was time to pick out her clothes. “Not too much to start with,” Janet had advised her as Raj pointed the camera at her wardrobe, at the few feminine things tucked away down the far end from the rack of sweater vest. “I remember my first femme clothes were embroidered jeans.”

Raj laughed and pushed one of her countless pairs of work pants aside to reveal a pair of blue jeans with slightly flared legs and a flock of teal and green and blue butterflies wending their way up one leg. “How about these, then?”

“Great minds,” Janet said, and they shared a not quite high enough laugh. Janet had been doing voice training for a couple of months, but it was expensive and difficult.

Raj’s voice only goes higher if she’s overemotional. Maybe that won’t be too hard tonight.

Now, Raj takes the jeans off their hanger and lays them out on the bed along with a teal top that matches the butterflies. It’s just a long-sleeved top with a bit of lace along the shallow V of the neckline, nothing special, but without one of her sweater vests over the top it does show how her upper body has begun to soften a little.

Getting her bra on is still an exercise in cursing, because hooks and eyes are complicated enough to take off someone when making out with them, let alone to do up behind one’s own back. The bra has little to hold so far and the cups are fairly padded, but when Raj has to hook a finger under one shoulder strap to hike it back up the way she’s seen Penny do a million times, it feels strangely good and right.

She dashes to pee one last time before she pulls her underwear on, rubbing her hands up her freshly waxed calves and thighs. She doesn’t tuck, relying on the heavy denim of the jeans to help her out in that regard. All these little changes are easy to hide under clothing; the trick is getting up the nerve to not hide any more.

The jeans have a woven blue belt, and the waistband sits just above her hips. Raj dithers over whether to tuck her top in or not and finally doesn’t. One finger is almost in her mouth before she snatches it away; she’s not wasting the careful job she did of painting her nails to match her top by chewing on them anymore.

In some ways, her boots are her favorite part of the whole ensemble. They’re black, do up with three buckles across the front instead of laces, and have a two-inch heel. They might not be the world’s most feminine boots _ever_ , but they help add a little sway to her step, and they’re pretty when they peek out from the jeans legs, and they are definitely not man’s shoes.

When she looks in the mirror she can sort of see herself. She’s had practice at wearing makeup before for cons; when she applies it it’s not the heavy-handed hash job of a first-timer, but she does have to redo her eye shadow from scratch when her shaking hand smears it everywhere. It’s not much, just a shimmer of pale blue-green that goes with everything else, but once that’s on and her mascara and lip gloss are applied, she can almost ignore the tiny dark dots on her chin and cheeks and give herself a tentative smile.

There’s only one more thing to do before she leaves the apartment. Well, two. Firstly, she sets her digital camera on self-timer and takes a full-length photo, standing with her hands either demurely linked or nervously twisted at her waist, and posts it to the photo log of her transition on the forum; a thread she was insanely scared of starting until she read all the way through Sarah’s and watched Sarah’s smile grow wider in every photo.

Secondly, she writes the caption, _Me, about to come out to friends. Wish me luck?_

There are five replies within three minutes and, their well-wishes warming her heart, Raj finally finds the courage to step out of the apartment.

* * *

Howard’s Vespa is parked out front, and the main building door is propped open with a brick. Raj negotiates the stairs carefully, trying to ignore the growing need to pee _again_ (really, bladder? Really?) and the way her panties are riding up a little, and hesitates outside 4A.

 _You can always pretend you’re only joking if they really freak out_ , says a tiny voice at the back of her brain.

 _Then you’d be giving up hope_ , says another.

Oh, fantastic. Even her random thoughts have a propensity for making puns.

Raj reaches out and knocks before she can lose what’s left of her nerve and hears Leonard yell, “Coming!” Well, actually, he was already yelling, “For God’s sake, Sheldon, it’s only 7.58!”, but this part’s actually directed at her.

He pulls the door open and only glances at Raj long enough to establish that it’s Raj and not an axe murderer before stepping back so Raj can walk in. She does so, getting as far as sitting on the couch next to Sheldon before her hands start shaking uncontrollably. Howard’s over at the fridge, clinking through the contents.

“I was getting worried,” Sheldon says, handing her one of the game controllers without so much as batting an eyelid. He raises his voice. “Leonard, it’s now 7.5 _9_ , if you’d care to take your seat…”

Leonard does not take his seat. Leonard is staring at Raj. “Are you wearing _makeup_?” he asks, voice sounding a little strangled. There’s a crash from the general direction of the kitchen as Howard drops something.

Sheldon does bat an eyelid at that, looking at Raj again a little more carefully. “Howard, clean that up,” he says, then, “Have you been to a con? There weren’t any cons on my calendar for this week. If there was a con and you didn’t tell us about it, I have to award you a strike.”

Raj can feel a hysterical giggle bubbling up in the back of her throat. Oh, _Sheldon_.

“I don’t think there was a con,” Howard says, joining them at last. Instead of just sitting down beside Raj he perches on the arm of the couch, feet on the seat despite Sheldon’s outraged glare, and looks down at Raj from there. “Who’re you playing, Raj?”

There’s something in the way that he says it that makes Raj realize that he’s already figured it out, so she takes the plunge and just says, “Myself.”

The word drops into the silence like a rock, spreads ripples through the room. Sheldon blinks, looking baffled. Leonard coughs and pushes his glasses up on his nose, Howard’s knuckles go white around the beer bottle he’s holding.

“Could you, uh, elaborate a little?” Leonard finally asks.

Raj has prepared for this, at least. “On New Comics Night a while back, Howard pointed out that I cosplay girls a lot at cons.”

Howard opens his mouth to say something, but Leonard hushes him, one hand squeezing Howard’s shoulder, and nods for Raj to go on.

“I did a lot of thinking about it and realized that it wasn’t just playing, that I was – am – really a woman.” Raj pauses there, but they’re all three just listening now. “So I’ve been seeing a therapist, and I’ve started on hormone replacement, and… this is me.” She gestures at herself, Xbox controller still in one hand. “You can still call me Raj if you want, but from now on it’s short for Rajya and I’m getting it legally changed and there’s some other changes to make as well but this is who I really am.” The last words come out in a rush as her gaze is inexorably drawn to her hands. The nail polish stands out bright against her brown skin. She can’t stop staring at them now, mostly because there’s a lot of silence happening around her and she’s afraid to look up again.

Howard breaks first. “You’re a woman.” His voice is scarily flat.

Raj looks up at him and is unable to read Howard’s expression. “Yes.”

She feels her heart sink into the pit of her stomach and keep on going when he doesn’t say anything else. For years she’s been wondering if there could be more between them than friendship. Now she’s wondering if they’ll even still have that. Howard looks as though he’s carved out of stone (probably some kind of white quartz, with a pointy bit for the nose).

Leonard steps away from Howard, sits down beside Raj, and puts his arms around her, squeezing her close. “Raj. Raj _ya_. You’re always going to be our friend, no matter what you look like on the outside.”

Raj feels tears starting behind her eyes, and then Howard’s thin arms go around her from behind as he leans over the back of the couch, and that’s when the tears fall. Sheldon doesn’t hug her because Sheldon doesn’t hug people, but he does offer her a tissue from the box on the coffee table and pat Raj’s knee awkwardly.

“I can’t believe it,” Howard starts.

“Believe it,” Raj says before he can say anything further.

“I believe _this_ ; I just don’t believe you didn’t tell me sooner.” _Me_ , not _us_. And then Howard emphasizes his point further by adding, “I thought I was your best friend.”

“You _are_ my best friend. I just – this is something really big for me, and I haven’t been able to talk to anyone about it yet. Except my therapist,” Raj amends. She decides not to mention Danielle, Karla, Janet and the others just yet. They’re _her_ girlfriends, her people.

“Fair enough,” Howard says. His lips are right next to Raj’s ear and it’s really distracting.

Sheldon clears his throat. “I’d just like to point out that it’s now 8.07.”

“Sheldon, for god’s sake, I think this is a little more important than Halo,” Leonard says.

Raj wipes her eyes and offers them a watery smile. “He’s right. Halo night is Halo night.” Howard and Leonard disentangle themselves from her and move to their regular seats. “And tonight I’m gonna remind Sheldon what it’s like to be beaten by a girl.”

She’s a little bit distracted, though, and Sheldon and Leonard end up winning the game. Raj is too busy thinking, mostly about how lucky she is that she’s here and not on her way home with three fewer friends, a little about how different this would be if she were back in India, and a tiny bit about the feeling of Howard’s breath on her ear.

* * *

She swears the three guys to secrecy for the time being.

This means that Sheldon will tell Amy and they’ll spend the rest of the night before Sheldon’s designated bedtime discussing the differences in structure between the male brain and the female brain, because Sheldon’s hardwired to look for the scientific potential in everything and Amy won’t care beyond the neurobiological study possibilities.

And it means that Howard will tell Bernadette, probably _after_ their designated bedtime, because Howard can’t keep his mouth shut.

It means that she’ll get to tell Penny herself, though, and she’s looking forward to it now that she’s gotten such a good response from the guys. It’s going to have to be tomorrow night, since Penny’s working late, but she’s already planning her outfit as she heads down the stairs.

“ _Raj_?”

Or Penny might be home early, stalled at the foot of the stairs, staring at Raj incredulously as she pauses halfway down the final flight.

Raj opens her mouth, waiting for nothing to come out, and hears, “Hey, Penny.” Her voice cracks a little, but the words come out.

She just said actual words to another woman without being drunk.

Penny’s still looking at her quizzically, though. “What are you _wearing_? Are you guys having a costume party?”

Raj descends the rest of the way into the lobby and hugs herself; the cold night air came in with Penny. “No. Penny, there’s something I’ve got to tell you.”

“Go ahead.”

There are butterflies in her stomach now. They’re wearing Doc Martens and breakdancing. “Um. Well. It’s not a costume.”

Penny nods slowly. “Go _on_.”

“I was just telling the guys, I’m undergoing hormone replacement therapy, and…” Raj finishes the explanation, still trying to figure out how she’s talking at all and, more importantly at this particular moment, why Penny _isn’t_ talking.

The silence is crisp and cold between them.

“So this isn’t a joke?” Penny asks eventually, her voice too flat. “Or some roleplaying thing?” She looks up at the Penny Blossom in Raj’s hair; Raj’s hand half-lifts and then falls back to her side.

“No.”

“And you’re not just drunk?”

“No! I haven’t had anything to drink!”

“You’re talking to me.”

Raj falters for the first time since she spoke those first uninebriated words, and finally manages, “I don’t know how.”

Penny cocks an eyebrow. “Yeah. Okay. Call me when you’re sober, okay?” She sweeps up the stairs past her and is gone before Raj can say anything, or reach out to stop her, or even manage a surprised expletive by way of response.

Raj sags against the wall. Her whole body seems to have gone numb. She manages to slide her phone out of her pocket and texts Leonard with, _Tell her I’m sober and not joking_ , because she knows (as surely as she knows that Proxima Centauri is the nearest star) that Penny will go straight to them and ask them what the hell kind of booze they’ve been feeding Raj all night.

She stumbles on the last step and drops the phone; it skitters across the floor and it’s ringing already, vibrating on the tiles, _Penny_ and her cell phone number on the display, and Raj paws at it until it stops making any noise, shoves it into her pocket, and runs clumsily, heels clicking, to her car.

The stars above her are cold and distant.

Raj makes it into the car before the tears start to fall. Her phone is ringing again and she pulls it out and switches it off. She glances up and out of the car window for a moment, up to the fourth floor window where the light is still on, where there’s a flash of blonde hair. The window swings open and if Raj had her window open she might have heard Penny call after her, or she might just have heard the sound of her car engine as she floors it, leaving tire tracks along several yards of Los Robles.

* * *

“I don’t know what to do now!” Raj wails into the headset mic. “I thought the guys would be the ones who freaked out, not Penny!”

“It’s going to be okay, honey,” Sarah says, rubbing her eyes. “She just needs time to get used to it. From what you’ve told me, she’s a very sweet girl.”

“She _is_! That’s what makes it so hard!”

“Look on the bright side; things went better with the guys than you expected.”

“I think I have a crush on _Howard_.”

Sarah giggles. “Sweetie, we’ve known that for ages. Every time you talk about him you blush. Especially considering that whole wrestling in spandex thing.”

Raj reaches up to touch her cheek and feels it warm. “Really? I didn’t know.” She finally feels confident enough to turn her phone back on. “But he’s got a girlfriend. Why is everything so hopeless?”

“You just have to hang in there.” Sarah yawns and hastily covers her mouth.

“I’m sorry. What time is it there?”

“Ten after one.”

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry. Go to bed.” Raj’s phone vibrates across the table as all the waiting messages register with it. Three voicemails (two Penny, one Leonard), five texts (three Penny, one Leonard, one Howard). She doesn’t want to check any of them.

“I think I have to.”

The Skype icon flashes, indicating another incoming call. “I’m sorry. It’s okay, I think Janet’s calling me anyway. You go to bed. Love to Lizzie.” Raj blows Sarah a kiss, Sarah catches it, and the screen blanks momentarily.

The other call’s not Janet, though. It’s Priya.

“Rajesh, sorry to call you so late, but I have some important news – what happened to your face?” She cocks her head and looks at Raj oddly, and it occurs to Raj that she probably has raccoon eyes. “Your mascara is running. Have you been dressing up as one of your fantasy characters again?”

“Yeah, I guess I have,” says Raj, and starts picking off her nail polish out of view of the camera.

* * *

She reapplies the polish sometime after midnight, after cleaning the makeup off her face and walking around the block several times, letting the crisp air wash around her like rain. She replies to Leonard and Howard via text – _I’ll be okay, see you at work_ – and listens to Penny’s voicemails on the fourth lap, and hearing the genuine remorse in Penny’s voice is what spurs her to go back inside and get the polish back out.

She’s just finishing her toenails, leaning down between her own legs and thinking that after painting miniatures, nails are a piece of cake, when there’s a flurry of knocking – no, _banging_ – at her door.

When she looks through the peephole, she’s not at all surprised at who she sees.

As soon as the door is unlocked and the chain undone, Penny flies into the apartment and crashes into her, arms going around her waist and clinging to her. “I am so, _so_ sorry, Raj.” She buries her face against Raj’s shoulder.

“Careful, I just did my nails,” Raj says automatically.

“Oh God, you’re such a _girl_. Oh. That’s kind of the point. Damn it! I’m sorry, I just – I don’t know what I’m meant to say.” Penny backs off a little and gives Raj a plaintive look. “I hope you don’t hate me for blowing you off in the lobby, I just—”

There are a million things Raj could say, but what ends up coming out is, “We’re cool, Penny.”

And she means it. Because she knows there will be bigger and higher and harder hurdles to get over than this one.

* * *

“How did it go?” The notepad is already out on the desk and Raj can read some of it upside down; her therapist seems to have made a list of people for her to come out to.

“All things considered? Not too badly.” Raj moves to play with the hem of her blouse and then folds her hands in her lap. “So far. But my sister is coming to stay with me in two weeks’ time.”

* * *

Aside from panicking about Priya, which is easy to do and requires no planning whatsoever, Raj also has to come out to Amy and Bernadette. Which, to be fair, is also easier than expected, because just as she suspected, Sheldon and Howard respectively cannot keep their mouths shut.

She sort of doesn’t mind this time around, because they’re close friends, but after discussing it with them both (Amy wants to study her, which would be weird if it were anyone but Amy; Bernadette is just a little bemused), Raj makes a point of telling everyone that this is a secret.

“A _real_ secret,” she emphasizes. “Not one that accidentally gets out to everyone.”

“I could help you draft up a nondisclosure agreement,” Sheldon offers.

“I think I’ll manage.”

She’d planned to come out at work next, but Priya’s impending arrival pushes that to the back burner, so for now it’s just their little circle of friends and, although she changes clothes when she’s safely inside 4A (or, one glorious night, 4B, for makeup lessons and liqueur-topped ice cream), she still has to cover up in public for things like their Cheesecake Factory visits and New Comics Night.

Raj wonders how the denizens of the Comic Center are going to take it when she does come out. Will she end up being like any other woman who walks in there, the instant subject of scrutiny? Will it be because she’s female or because of who she used to be?

She’s pondering this on one visit when Stuart bounds over to her. “New Warlords tournament in January!” he says, offering her the clipboard and pen. “Guess who’s coming to join in again?”

Raj can see quite plainly who’s joining in again. If Stuart could make sparkly text work on a printout, he would. “Oh God, Sheldon’s going to flip,” she says, printing her name slowly so she remembers just to use _Raj_ and not _Rajya_. “Hey, Sheldon! Wil Wheaton’s coming back!”

She notices Stuart’s gaze lingering on her nails as Sheldon comes over – _stomps_ over, actually – and realizes that they’re still cotton-candy pink.

Stuart doesn’t pass comment.


	3. through all the tears and all the lies

The name thing only really becomes a problem after about a week and a half, when she starts noticing the way that Sheldon doesn’t say the second half of her name. Sheldon’s one of maybe two people besides her family who ever used her full name before, and she doesn’t see Amy nearly as often, so that’s not an issue. But now Raj notices the way Sheldon either cuts himself off after the first syllable, or hesitates a little before using “-ya” instead of “-esh”, or sometimes slips altogether. Although she’s sure that Sheldon’s not doing it on purpose, every time it happens it cuts a little deeper.

The funny thing is that she quite likes the way Sheldon uses her full name, when he gets it right. It’s different. It gives her a pleasant warm feeling. She wishes more people would do it, because _Raj_ by itself, that’s still her name, but there’s nothing differentiating it from, well, before.

Howard never uses her full name anyway, but he does start calling her “Rajette”, which is funny exactly once and then, like every joke Howard beats to death, makes Raj grit her teeth and want to slowly strangle him with his dickey.

Finally, she puts down her cards midway through a practice round of Warlords of Ka’a (they’re all in intense training for the tournament, naturally) and announces, “I’m not going to be Rajya anymore.”

The other three look at her, because she’s sitting there in an ankle-length skirt and is wearing bangles that jingle every time she plays a card, so it’s pretty obvious she doesn’t mean she’s changed her mind about the whole situation.

“What do you mean?” Howard is the one to break the silence.

“I mean it’s too close to my old name. I need something completely different.”

“What did you have in mind?” Leonard puts his cards down and goes for his laptop. “We can look up name meanings and stuff online.”

“Oh, believe me, I know.”

Leonard types rapidly and a familiar onomastics website shows up on screen briefly before Leonard opens his email over it. “Oh hey, Mom wants to know if you feel your decision to change gender has anything to do with Howard and Bernadette getting engaged and therefore irrevocably ending your ersatz relationship with Howard.”

“...”

“I know, she has all the social nicety of a dead lizard.”

“Dude,” Raj says, “I can’t believe you told your _mother_. _My_ mother doesn’t know yet. I swore you all to secrecy!”

“Actually, I believe the guilty party in this case would be me.” Sheldon does not look in the slightest bit guilty, contrary to his words. “Amy felt that in order to properly conduct her research on the changes in your brain and behavior during your transition, she would need assistance from a fully qualified psychiatrist.”

Raj looks at Leonard, who just shrugs and says, “Dead lizards of a, um, scale flock together?”

Raj sighs and picks her cards back up. “I’ll think about it and let you guys know. In the meantime, we have a tournament to train for.”

Three seconds later, Howard leans over to her and whispers, “Five bucks says it takes at least three rounds for Sheldon to figure out Leonard just called him a dead lizard.”

“You’re on.”

* * *

In the end it turns out to be simple. She swaps Rajya to the middle spot and trims her former middle name; by the day before Priya is due to fly into LAX, Maya Rajya Koothrappali is ready to tell Priya that she’s her sister.

Right after she’s done peeing nervously for the third time.

She sends a text around to tell everyone as soon as she’s totally sure – which is pretty much as soon as she says it aloud for the first time and it just _fits_ – and the first response back is from Howard.

 _Maya? May *I*? Pretty please? ;-P_

Maya rolls her eyes, wishes she’d thought it through just a _little_ more, and replies to tell Howard that the next app she makes will be one to punch people through their phones.

Then she saves the message instead of deleting it, because it _is_ kind of cute.

* * *

The way Priya comes to a halt in front of her at the airport ought to be accompanied by some sort of cartoonish screeching sound.

“Rajesh, what the _hell_ are you wearing?”

It’s just her embroidered jeans and a nice shirt. Or maybe Priya means the makeup. It’s probably the makeup. Maya feels like she needs to go pee again. Even Howard’s hand on her elbow, squeezing and then falling away, doesn’t help, because Priya’s eyes catch the movement and narrow suspiciously.

“Priya,” Leonard says, interposing himself between Priya and Maya, “this is your sister, Maya.”

Priya collapses. Just like that. Her knees go sideways and suddenly she’s sitting on her wheeled suitcase, mouth hanging open in shock.

“You’re _hijra_?” she whispers, staring up at Maya.

“No. Just female.” Maya crouches down to be face to face with her sister.

“You know Mummy and Daddy won’t think so.”

“I haven’t told them yet.”

“Of course not.” Priya shakes her head. “Rajesh, you can’t. This is madness.”

“My name is _Maya_ , and this is who I am.”

They just stare into each other’s eyes for a long, long moment. Leonard clears his throat, but Maya shakes her head slightly and he subsides. Priya’s gaze doesn’t flicker from her face for so much as an instant. Maya wonders what it is that she’s looking at.

“I suppose it evens out the gender balance in the family,” Priya says at last. “Nanda and I always were outnumbered by the boys.” She lets out a sound that could be a laugh or a sob and launches herself at Maya, who is unprepared and falls backward onto the floor, her sister’s arms around her, and they both end up giggle-crying while the endless flow of arrivals and departures goes on around them.

* * *

She gets online that night after Priya’s gone to bed, sitting with her hair in tiny pigtails, and updates her photo log. It already has a few more entries since her coming out night: her with Penny, making kissy-faces as Bernadette holds the camera; her with Amy, Amy looking even less feminine than she does; her playing Warlords with the guys, the flash blurring off her bangles.

The one that she uploads now is just captioned _Sisters_.

* * *

“You know you’ve been pretty lucky so far,” her therapist cautions her when Maya calls her the next morning, too excited to hold her sister’s acceptance in until their next appointment.

Maya is still coasting on the high of having Priya accept her, and simply says, “I know,” a little too flippantly.

* * *

Her parents disown her.

Priya is sitting beside her as they open the Skype connection, and greets their parents with her usual chipper, “Hello Mummy, hello Daddy!” but they don’t even look at her, just turn scarily similar glares on Maya.

“Rajesh. What are you wearing?”

She’s fully en femme for this. There’s no sense holding back. Plus wearing an embroidered skirt gives her hands something to do when they want to twitch uncontrollably. She picks at a row of beads. “It’s nothing, really—”

“That is not true!” Her father sounds on the verge of a fit and his face has gone red. “Tell us the truth, Rajesh. Are you _hijra_?”

Leonard, perched on the arm of the couch beside Priya (and conveniently out of sight of the camera), mouths _What’s hijra?_ at her, but Priya just elbows him and he subsides.

“No, I’m not _hijra_. And I’m not Rajesh any more, either. My name is Maya now.”

There is a long silence from India, so long that Maya wonders if the audio has cut out.

“Say it isn’t true,” her mother says at last. “Rajesh, take it back.”

Maya looks down at the string of beads and pulls a little too hard, and the beads go bouncing all over the floor. “My name is Maya.”

“Your name is _nothing_!” her father spits. “ _You_ are nothing! Understand me? If you persist with this nonsense, you are nothing to us!”

It feels like that moment in the lobby with Penny all over again, as though the cold is sinking into her bones.

“Daddy, be reasonable,” Priya pleads.

Maya doesn’t hear her father’s response. She’s up, off the couch, past Leonard trying to catch her wrist on the way, grabbing her windbreaker, and out of the door. She pounds the elevator button and then gives up and runs down the stairs just as her apartment door opens again and Leonard yells after her.

* * *

She doesn’t know how far she runs, or how fast. All that she knows is that she ends up in a deserted playground, and her phone is going crazy in her jacket pocket, and once again she doesn’t want to answer it or read any of the messages.

Also, her thighs are killing her. Running in a skirt is a _bitch_.

Once she sits down and catches her breath she feels worse, not better. At least when she was running the endorphins were racing and her heart was thumping in her ears. Now all she can hear is her father’s voice.

 _Maya_ means “illusion”.

Maybe she really _is_ nothing.

Maya trails one sandal in the dirt, pushing the swing she’s on back and forth, watching the road. A jogger goes past with a dog and glances at her mistrustfully. Her phone rings again. She still doesn’t answer it.

 _I have no family_ , she thinks, and shivers.

She sits there until she’s shivering from the cold as well as everything else and only then realizes that she really doesn’t know where she is. She could look it up on her phone, but it seems pointless. Going back home at all seems pointless, for that matter. She toes the dirt again and listens to the ancient chains creak as the swing moves along its short arc.

There’s a familiar droning noise starting to drown out the creaking. It’s getting closer. Maya tries to place it but can’t, and lets her head hang low, her hair falling around her eyes. Maybe if she just sits very still it’ll go away.

Maybe if she sits still enough the whole world will go away.

The droning stops. Good.

“Maya?”

It’s Howard, pulling his helmet off and running across the playground towards her. Maya has time to stand up before Howard can bowl her over, but Howard nearly does anyway, flinging his arms around her and squeezing her breath away for a moment.

“Howard, get off.”

“You asshole! You do have your phone on you, right? We’ve been going crazy!”

Maya’s mouth gapes open. “ _You’ve_ been going crazy?”

Howard ignores her, getting his own phone out and calling someone. “Found her. I’ll bring her home. Let the others know, okay?” He puts the phone back in his pocket and then grabs Maya by the shoulders and shakes her a little. “Maya, when you ran off like that, we thought – we thought—” His voice cracks and he just grabs her again and holds her tight-tight-tight.

Maya knows what they thought, because she thought it as well. But she’s pretty sure that suicide fucks up your karma really badly, and besides, there are people who aren’t her family who still matter to her.

She gets on the back of the Vespa behind one of those who matters the most and clings to his waist as they drive home.

* * *

They’re all at her apartment. Penny’s car is parked behind Leonard’s, engine still ticking as it cools. Howard noses the Vespa up onto the curb and parks it there.

“Did my parents say anything else?” Maya asks before they step into the elevator.

Howard shakes his head. “Priya says they were pretty angry. She tried to defend you, they threatened to disown her as well if she kept it up, and then she started making out with Leonard and, well, apparently the screen went blank after that. I don’t know; they didn’t tell us much when they called, just said to get out there and look for you.”

Maya presses the button for the third floor. “So they called together a search party.”

Howard laughs. “You have no idea. Amy’s on her way here on the bus, and Bernie was on foot. Sheldon’s back at his place in case you turned up there and he was calling everywhere we thought you might have gone.”

Maya’s chest goes tight and hot and she can feel tears prickling at her eyes again. “That’s amazing.”

“Yeah, well…” Howard shrugs as the clunky old elevator dings and the doors open. “That’s modern communication for you. If you were a cavewoman you could’ve disappeared for _days_.”

Maya manages a smile at that. “Howard?”

“Yeah?”

There are a lot of things she wants to say to him, but just then a breathless voice calls, “Hold the elevator!” and Bernadette comes racing in from the street, and the moment is lost.

“Priya and Leonard made out, huh?” is what she ends up saying as the elevator grinds its way upwards.

“Uh, yeah. Sorry about that. I think it was just to shock your parents. At first.”

“Does she know _I’m_ going to disown _her_ for that? And him. Can I disown him? How do you disown a friend? Do I have to be actually related to him to disown him, or can I just never talk to him again?”

Howard throws an elbow gently into her side and pulls her out of the elevator.

* * *

Maya wakes up the next morning with her head on Priya’s stomach, which is rising and falling gently with each breath. This does not in any way alleviate the pounding in Maya’s head or the churning in her own stomach. She rolls off the bed and crawls to the bathroom.

Howard’s asleep in the tub with a rubber duck clutched in his hands. Maya notes this blearily and then ignores it in favor of vomiting violently into the toilet.

When she gets to her feet at last the first thing she does is glop toothpaste onto her brush and shove it into her mouth before she even flushes the toilet. Howard hasn’t moved. Looking back into the bedroom, Maya realizes Leonard is curled around Priya.

What _happened_?

The answer doesn’t get any clearer when she steps into the living room, because Penny, Amy, and Bernadette are _all_ asleep on her couch. Penny’s leaning against one end, snoring occasionally, Bernadette’s half draped across her, and Amy’s using Bernadette’s butt as a pillow, which makes Maya snicker.

Her laptop is sitting open on the coffee table. It’s surrounded by a number of empty beer and wine bottles, where “a number” means “a fairly _large_ number, and also definitely not an imaginary or negative one”. Her Facebook page takes up half the screen; her inbox, which seems to be almost all unread emails, takes up the other.

Maya thinks she’s going to be sick again and chews nervously on her toothbrush until the feeling subsides. She carefully picks the laptop up and unplugs it so that she can move it over to the kitchen counter.

Within five minutes, she has discerned several things.

Firstly, that everyone who has her added on Facebook and isn’t completely thick now knows that she’s female, because she’s changed _everything_ , from her name to her profile picture to her gender in her bio.

Secondly, that she consequently has half a dozen fewer relatives; both parents, both older brothers, and her father’s brother and his wife. There are messages on her wall about it. Maya deletes them, and then pauses to spit mint foam into the kitchen sink and keep chewing on her toothbrush.

Thirdly, that Priya lists her as a sister now, instead of a brother.

Finally, that there are more messages on her wall saying how proud they are of her than there are condemning or disowning her. Penny’s is all hearts and ASCII flowers. There’re a bunch in a row from Sarah and Danielle and the others (when she gets onto their forum later she finds the panicked thread started by Sarah titled _Support Maya_ and has to smile, although she also has to apologize profusely for not getting any of their “Are you sure about this?” messages). There’s a friendship request from Leonard’s mom with a note about wanting to personally examine the comments left on her wall to be able to psychologically judge them in the framework of her wider social network; Maya declines it but forwards all of the wall comments from her inbox before deleting them.

By the end of those five minutes she needs a new toothbrush, but for someone who has two fewer parents and two fewer siblings than she did the night before, she’s feeling surprisingly okay. Not good, not great, but okay.

* * *

It takes another twenty minutes to clear out her inbox of Facebook notifications, tidy up her wall, and make a non-drunk response to a couple of people asking if it’s really true. Some of them are work colleagues, so Gablehauser will know by the time Maya has to go in to work tomorrow morning, but Caltech’s non-discrimination and equal opportunity employment policy is very well-worded and is on her side.

By the time she’s done all of that and put the kettle on, she can hear Priya moving around in the bedroom. Specifically, she hears Priya push Leonard out of bed onto the floor in her haste to get up, and then she hears Howard shriek when Priya turns the shower on and douses him with cold water.

“Danger, danger,” Penny murmurs from the end of the couch, and then she’s snoring again, even as Priya hustles a sopping wet Howard out of the bathroom and slams the door.

Some people deal with the morning after better than others.

Howard makes a move to collapse onto the couch, sees that it’s already occupied, and settles for flopping into a chair instead. “My brain hurts.”

“Yeah, but how’s your duck?”

Howard blinks at him and then realizes he’s still holding the rubber duck. “Um.”

“That’s the weird part, because I don’t own any rubber ducks,” Maya informs him. The kettle finishes boiling and she makes Howard’s coffee first. “So where did it come from?”

“ _That’s_ the weird part? Why was I in your bathtub?”

“Because everywhere else was taken.” Leonard stumbles out of the bedroom and makes a beeline for the kitchen. “Also, you said that if Bernadette was going to be Facebook married to Penny then you were going to find someone who really cared about you.” He slams back half a cup of coffee in two gulps and then starts fanning his mouth frantically. “I think you found the duck at 7-11.”

Howard cradles his duck and looks sorrowfully over at the couch. “My fiancée’s Facebook married to someone else? My life is over.”

This, of course, is when Maya gets to say, “Dude, _your_ life is over?” and point at her laptop screen. Howard squints across the room and Leonard takes pity on him, taking both the laptop and his coffee over there. They read Maya’s Facebook page together with the occasional, “Oh my God,” while Maya opens the fridge and stares into it in the hope that something other than beer will appear in there. There’s not even very much beer left.

Just when she’s about to give up and suggest they all go out somewhere for breakfast, assuming that it’s actually physically possible to disentangle the girls from the couch, there’s a triple knock at the door, and it turns out that Sheldon can make pancakes. Like, _really good_ pancakes.

“Feldon, thefe are amafing,” Penny says, dribbling maple syrup. She swallows. “Bernadette, I’m Facebook divorcing you and marrying him.”

“Interesting. I had no idea Facebook relationships were so fluid.” Sheldon looks like he’s going to start taking notes. And Maya thought that Amy was the social scientist out of the two of them. “To think that one’s status can be changed at the click of a mouse. So unlike ‘real life’ relationships.” Maya wonders how he can do quotation marks while holding a fork without spraining anything. “Yet another reason that we’ll all be better off after the singularity.”

“Sheldon? Sweetie?” Penny’s holding her own fork in a dangerous way.

“Yes, Penny?”

“Shut up or we’re going to Facebook marry you to Howard’s duck.”

* * *

They get through the rest of the day without anyone getting Facebook married to Howard’s duck. The bottles go into the recycling bin and the detritus of breakfast gets cleaned up, and one by one Maya’s friends go home. They’ll be storming Castle Caltech in the morning, but until then everyone needs time to rest and recuperate.

“So did Daddy and Mummy disown you as well?” Maya asks when she and Priya are finally alone.

“No, but I think Daddy wanted to. Mummy said I was acting out and told me to call them when I’m settled in.” Priya is examining Maya’s wardrobe, riffling through the coathangers, trying to help her pick out an outfit for work tomorrow. “She also said that maybe I should stay somewhere other than with you.”

“What, like with Leonard?”

Priya goes pink and shakes her head. “I really don’t think that’s what she meant.”

“Penny’s place only has one bedroom. Bernadette’s has a spare room but then you have to listen to her and Howard having sex. Amy might have room, but she’ll probably want to stick electrodes to your head and compare your brainwaves to mine.”

“I note _you_ don’t list staying with Leonard as an option.”

“Oh, it is, if you _want_ to never go home to India.” Maya suddenly feels homesick. California is hot, mostly, but it’s not India-hot, and the thought that she might not have a place there any more hurts deep down inside.

Priya turns away from the wardrobe and stretches out on the bed beside her, putting one arm around her shoulders. Maya doesn’t cry, not exactly, but Priya holds her anyway for a long, quiet time.

They’re interrupted at last by the buzz of Maya’s phone in her pocket. Priya goes back to clothing selection while Maya checks her phone.

It’s a message from Howard. _I didn’t know you were into guys as well as girls. How come you never told us *that*?_

Maya drops her phone and sprints into the living room, yanking her laptop open so fast she almost snaps the lid clean off. She navigates to her Facebook page, and literally facepalms when she realizes: sometime during her grand gesture of womanhood last night, she also managed to make the “Interested In” field public. She’d had it disabled ever since she signed up, because that seemed like less of a lie than only telling half the truth by only ticking one box. Not to mention that it’s stupid that there’re only two boxes for gender anyway, but that’s really not the issue here.

It’s been hours now.

She’s out as a woman to everyone. Why not this too?

She leaves the page unaltered and walks back into the bedroom. Priya, in the manner of nosy little sisters everywhere, has read the message, because the phone’s now on the nightstand instead of the floor.

“I texted him back and told him you’d assumed he wasn’t totally stupid and that he’d figured it out for himself,” she informs him.

“I really am going to disown you now,” Maya says, and hugs her.

* * *

The funny thing is, coming out at work is actually ridiculously easy compared to everything else, since Gablehauser barely pays any attention to Maya at the best of times and Maya mostly works with her door shut.

Everything has to go up the chain of command to President Siebert, though, and so at two o’clock on the dot Maya’s sitting in Siebert’s office. She’s come prepared, though; instead of tugging on her shirt sleeves or finding loose threads in her skirt, she’s got a paperclip that she can unbend and rebend.

Siebert’s on the phone when his secretary waves Maya in, so Maya has time to thoroughly mangle the paperclip before he turns his attention to her.

“Have you completed your legal name change yet?” is the first thing he asks.

Maya blinks. “Um, no. I mean, I’ve done all the paperwork, I’ve just got to finish getting it processed.”

“Well, it means we’re going to have to keep sending your paychecks out under your old name, as well as any other university communications, but I can get the sign on your door changed.” Siebert smiles a little at her; Maya feels sure she must look like a confused goldfish. “Doctor Koothrappali, you’re not the first person at this institution to be in your position.”

Maya closes her mouth and then just shakes her head. “I’m sorry. I was just expecting...”

“University legislation dictates that we have to maintain a non-discriminatory environment towards all employees with regard to – well, I’m sure you’ve read it.” Siebert doesn’t wait for Maya’s nod. “The fact that my daughter is a lesbian dictates that I’m committed to upholding that legislation.”

Maya’s back to goldfishing at him again.

“I have copies of all the paperwork here for you to fill out as soon as your legal name change is complete, and also a flowchart of the best way to file a harassment complaint against someone, which frankly I hope you never have to use.” Siebert pushes the papers at her. Maya takes them and manages not to drop them.

“Are you serious?” she finally manages.

“Would you _prefer_ me to be prejudiced?”

“Well, no.”

“Good. Now go on, back to work.” Siebert makes a shooing motion with one hand. “Oh, and Doctor Koothrappali?”

“Yes?”

“You might want to be more careful with what you do and don’t make public on your Facebook.”

Stupid _fucking_ Facebook. She’s going to delete the whole thing and start over, maybe fabricate an online personality as her own online girlfriend from Canada who just happens to share a surname and field of study. “Yes, sir,” Maya mumbles before fleeing.


	4. be your best friend yeah I’ll love you forever

Wednesday night, Maya almost doesn’t go out to the comic book store, almost calls Howard and tells him not to pick her up. But then she shakes her head at herself and gets dressed, picking a skirt that will hike up enough for her to sit on the Vespa without getting it caught in anything and a blouse with a little bit of a dip to the neckline.

Priya watches her get dressed, because after growing up together they’re down to having zero secrets from each other, and helps her do her hair, which is getting to that in-between stage that’s too short to tie back and too long to leave loose. A few sparkly butterfly pins take care of that.

“I feel like this is happening too fast,” she says to their reflections in the mirror, her face just that bit more square-jawed and solid than her sister’s.

“Welcome to the digital age.” Priya fixes the last butterfly pin in Maya’s hair. “You’re going to need to change conditioner. Your hair’s too oily.”

And that right there is part of it all, Maya thinks as she walks out to the living room to pick up her bag. They really are in a day and age where things can change so much faster and more naturally than ever before.

Maybe Sheldon was right about the singularity. Maybe they really are all one step away from digital immortality, where bodies won’t matter, only minds will.

Her reverie is interrupted by the squeak of the Vespa horn from outside. Maya slings her bag over her shoulder, gives Priya one more nervous smile, and hurries downstairs.

* * *

The Comic Center is always busy on Wednesday nights thanks to the influx of new comics; Stuart is barely visible behind the counter due to the stack of cardboard boxes on it.

The guys make a beeline for the new comics wall. Maya hangs back a little. Lonely Larry spots her and nudges Captain Sweatpants in the ribs and then both of them are staring at her and whispering. She ducks her head and hurries to join the others. She should’ve stayed home.

While she’s flicking through the Archies, idly checking to see if there’s anything new, someone taps her on the shoulder and Maya jumps like she’s been electrocuted.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry!” Stuart looks almost as shocked. He’s holding his Warlords clipboard; it’s the one with the limited-edition foil-print Enchanted Bunny laminated onto the back. “I, uh, didn’t mean to freak you out.”

“That’s okay.” Or it will be okay once her heart stops hammering in her chest. “What’s up?”

“Well, I know we’re still a couple of weeks out from the tournament—”

“Three weeks, Stuart, before you and Wil Wheaton are soundly thrashed.”

“Shut up, Sheldon.” Maya glares at him until he goes to look at robots, which doesn’t take very long because Sheldon’s hopeless at following through on smack talk. “Sorry about that.”

“Anyway, I already set up the initial draw, but I wondered if you’d check over it and make sure I didn’t list anyone twice or leave them out?” Stuart gives her a quick, nervous smile. “Just bring it to the counter when you’re done.”

Maya leans against the comic stand, feeling it wobble a little before she adjusts her position, and pulls the sign-up sheet off the clipboard, eyes darting between it and the list of team pairings on the draw sheet. A lot of it’s straightforward “winner of round one vs. winner of round eight” stuff, and Stuart’s got that down pat. Maya traces the path back from the grand final to make sure, though.

Then she runs her eyes down the list of actual names and freezes.

She’s not on there.

What the hell, what the _hell_ – how dare Stuart leave her off and then ask her to be the one to check the listing? Is this his asshole way of telling her she doesn’t belong anymore?

Maya forces herself to breathe. Not deep and slow, just breathe normally. Normally. Her own name on each inhale and exhale, resonating in her head. And then she looks at the list again.

Naturally _Wil W._ and _Stuart B._ are listed as the top seed, after last time’s crushing defeat. Then some names she doesn’t know, including _Larry U._ and – God, is that really Captain Sweatpants’ real first name? No wonder he doesn’t mind being called Captain Sweatpants.

Finally she sees it. Plain as day. Right there.

 _Sheldon C._ and _Maya K_.

He didn’t leave it _off_. He got it _right_.

Maya takes the clipboard back to the counter, feeling as though she’s floating.

“Everything’s fine,” she says to Stuart, who jerks and almost nicks his thumb with the box cutter. So then _she_ has to apologize for startling _him_ , and they both laugh nervously this time. She takes the box cutter from him and starts slicing the tape open on the last boxes; he looks surprised, but doesn’t object. “I hope tournament night’s not going to be too busy on top of the new comics coming in.”

“Oh, I’ll manage. I’ll just get up early.” Stuart looks like he’s had far too many late nights and early starts of late anyway; there are dark circles under his eyes and he drags the back of his hand across his mouth to hide a yawn.

“Do you live close by?”

This time Stuart’s laugh is just plain weird instead of nervous. “Yeah, I do. So it won’t be too bad. You know, with the getting up early thing.”

Maya reaches into one of the boxes and starts stacking shrink-wrapped comics on the counter. “I could swing by early and help you set the tables up, if you want,” she offers, and Stuart’s face lights up as if she just offered to redesign the entire store for maximum customer flow and minimum shoplifting blind spots.

* * *

Maya has to admit that she’s not terribly surprised when Howard kisses her goodnight.

They’re outside Maya’s place, the Vespa parked beside them and instead of staying on it to take off again as soon as Maya dismounts, Howard’s gotten off it as well and put his arms around Maya, pulling her close.

At first Maya thinks _okay, sure, goodnight hug_. Then one of Howard’s hands moves up to the back of her neck, and Howard gives her a look she’s seen before, although never directed at her.

In the second before Howard kisses her Maya has time to think two things: _what about Bernadette?_ and _Why could you never have looked at me like that before?_

Then Howard’s lips are on hers, and Maya’s hands tighten involuntarily at the small of Howard’s back, and all thought recedes as Howard’s tongue slips boldly into her mouth. Maya kisses him back, suppressing a giggle at the way it makes Howard literally go weak at the knees, pressing against her.

Pressing _hard_ against her.

Howard’s not shy about touching her with his other hand either, tracing one fingertip along the neckline of Maya’s top, making her shiver. It feels like a line of fire, burning across Maya’s skin. It’s been so long since anyone touched her like that other than herself.

Howard’s palm grazes downward, just a little, and it’s that movement that suddenly brings Maya snapping back to reality. She pulls her head back a little, about to say, “Howard, no,” and that’s when Howard cups the small mound of her breast in his trembling hand and it’s Maya’s turn to lose her balance, and all that comes out of her mouth is a moan as the world turns to stars.

His touch grows more assured, his thumb seeking out her nipple through the fabric of her blouse and bra, and he catches her mouth again with his. Maya whimpers and lets her hands drift down to cup his ass and pull him against her, relishing the feeling of his hard heat pressing against her thigh. His other hand is twisted through her hair, and for a moment it’s everything she ever wanted with him.

But she can’t be with him, just as Rajesh-that-was couldn’t be with him, and even if the reasons are different now, Maya still has to be the one to pull away.

Howard looks at her, dazed with kissing and touching, and Maya simply says, “Bernadette,” and watches the clarity return to Howard’s eyes. She hates herself a little for slapping him with that word, but knows she would hate herself more if she didn’t say it.

Watching the tail-light on the Vespa diminish into the distance a few minutes later, she’s still glad that she said it.


	5. up in the clouds we’ll be higher than ever

After all of that, Maya’s rather glad when nothing much else happens for the next three weeks.

Oh, things happen. Sheldon has all of them in intense training for the Warlords tournament. Plus he’s also stuck a picture of Wil Wheaton’s face onto the dartboard on the back of 4A’s front door, so now everyone has to knock _and_ duck on their way in, just in case.

Her legal name change is approved, so that means paperwork and lots of it. She complains about this to her therapist, who just says, “You knew this was part of it all from the start,” and to the girls online, who empathize with her and talk about how each state treats name changes differently. By the end of the chat she’s really quite enlightened and also sort of wishes she lived in Minnesota.

Amy really does experiment on her, but it’s mostly brainwaves stuff. She asks a few pointed questions about sexual arousal and Howard that Maya refuses to answer. Maya winds up spending more time at Amy’s answering questions than she does at her therapist’s, and that’s even taking into consideration the extra session scheduled after she told her therapist about the fiasco with her family.

Amy asks all the difficult questions, for that matter.

“So, have you considered sex reassignment surgery?”

Maya makes a disparaging noise. “On my pay? Are you serious?”

“I’m not asking whether or not you can afford it, I’m asking whether or not you’ve considered it.”

“Well, yeah. But it’s so expensive. I’d have to live off ramen for years to afford it. And I hate ramen.”

“I could pay for it for you,” Amy says offhandedly.

Maya wonders if her EEG lines at this particular moment manage to spell out _what the hell?_ because that’s what she’s thinking. “Amy, you can’t do that.”

“Well, technically that’s true. However, my fiancé can. He’s quite rich and has financed several of my lab’s endeavors.”

Maya is both fascinated and horrified. “You want me to be your lab rat? Wait, you’re engaged? Since when are you engaged?”

“Maya, calm down, you’re disrupting the baseline.” Amy puts one hand on her head and makes her sit still, adjusting the EEG machine with the other hand. “I’ve been engaged for some time, although I can’t imagine ever having to follow through on that promise; it’s really just for the look of things, and for the financial benefit of my lab. Also, no, you won’t be my lab rat. You’ll continue to provide me with neurobiological data, that’s all. I don’t expect you to start running mazes or pressing buttons with your nose.”

She laughs like Sheldon does. It’s creepy.

“I’m going to have to think about this,” Maya says.

“I can see that you’re thinking about it, I’m watching your brainwaves.”

“That’s not quite what I – oh, never mind.”

* * *

Maya ends up texting Amy to tell her yes that very night. It’s as simple as getting out of the shower, catching sight of herself in the mirror, and, absurdly, thinking of _The Little Mermaid_ ; happy with her top half but not her bottom half.

She just hopes that she’ll be happier after her transformation. Although feeling like she’s walking on knives, or at least like she’s being poked _somewhere_ with knives, is going to be a given, at least for a while. But then, the stars have been there for billions of years; they’re not going to move (much) in the few weeks she’ll have to take off work.

She looks at herself again in the mirror once the towel is secured around her waist. Her hair’s longer when it’s weighed down by water, almost brushing her shoulders. The hormones have really been working away on her body as well as her brain. She wonders if she can talk Amy into getting Faisal to pay for laser hair removal as well; as far as her body hair goes it’s not too bad, but her face still never looks quite right later in the day. She’s going to have to come home and shave before she goes to the comic book store.

Maya smiles at her reflection and then starts to towel her hair dry.

When she gets out of the bathroom, Priya is sitting on the bed. “Get dressed,” she orders, pointing at the street clothes that she’s laid out.

“What?”

“Put your clothes on, we’re going out.” Priya leaves the room before Maya can remove her towel, but not before Maya sees that she’s wearing a short-cropped top underneath her coat.

“Where are we going?” she calls, struggling to pull her jeans up her still-damp legs.

“You’ll see!”

* * *

They park outside of the Target on Colorado, and Maya’s really wondering what Priya’s up to now, because random shopping isn’t really her thing. But then Priya grabs her hand and marches her across the street, and Maya spots the word _Anomaly_ on the window as Priya pulls her inside.

“Hey, ladies,” says the guy behind the counter. “Help you?”

“Yes, we have an appointment. Priya and Maya Koothrappali.”

He flicks through his diary, clicking a pen rapidly, and then nods. “One navel, one lobes. Gotcha. If you’ll take a seat for a sec, I’ll make sure everything’s ready for you.”

As he pushes through a curtain to the back of the shop, Maya turns to Priya and hisses, “You’d better be the navel piercing!”

Priya just laughs and drags her over to the counter to start looking at jewelry.

* * *

Priya ends up driving them home because Maya can’t stop sneaking glances at her ears in the rear view mirror and nearly swerves into the oncoming traffic as a result. She’s just wearing simple gold studs, but they’re so _pretty_.

“I know, Maya, you’ve told me five times already.”

“You don’t need to be bitchy about it.”

“I’m not being bitchy about it; I’m being bitchy about you nearly getting us killed.”

“Is this like the time you nearly got us killed half an hour ago running across the road fifty yards from the nearest traffic lights?”

“That was totally different!”

“Yeah, and that guy who honked his horn at us was just doing it because of my hot ass.”

“Maya?”

“Yeah?”

“Shut up.”

* * *

Priya can’t sleep on her stomach because of her navel ring; Maya can’t roll onto her side because of her ears. They lie side by side on their backs. Eventually Priya rolls and puts her head on Maya’s shoulder, and Maya puts an arm around her.

“You’re a lot more fun to dress up than Nanda,” Priya murmurs sleepily.

“Nanda doesn’t _like_ dressing up.”

“True. Manoj used to, though. Remember the time he borrowed one of Mummy’s saris and ran down the street in it?”

“He was _four_. And I don’t think he’ll be trying it again after this.” Maya sighs. “I can’t believe Sanjay and Tariq disowned me as well.”

“They just did it because they’re afraid of Daddy. I’m sure you’ll get a message from one of them soon.”

Maya doesn’t point out that she’s been saying that for weeks.

Eventually they both drift off to sleep. It reminds Maya of when Priya used to crawl into her bed during big thunderstorms back home, except that these days Priya’s the one doing the comforting, and there’s no meteorologist who can predict when this storm will end.


	6. when something falls out of place (when that glass is empty)

Finally, it’s Warlords night. Maya sneaks out of work early to dash home for a shower and shave before doing her makeup and hair. She’s really starting to understand why women can take so long in the bathroom.

Priya bangs on the door while she’s doing her mascara. “Do you want me to come with you tonight?”

“Are you prepared to be seen with a freak?” Maya yells back.

“Come on, Sheldon’s not that bad!”

Maya opens the door. “That’s not who I mea—oh.” Priya’s smirking. “No, that’s fine. I think Howard’s bringing Bernadette and Sheldon’s bringing Amy.”

“Is Penny coming?”

“Yeah, but she’s bringing herself.” Maya feels the need to make the distinction clear; Priya’s kind of weird about Penny being in close proximity to Leonard, even after countless arguments about how that makes it sound like she doesn’t trust Leonard.

“That’s fine.”

“I’m so glad you approve,” Maya says, and goes to finish her makeup. “I’m heading over early to help Stuart set up, by the way.”

“Oh, really?” There’s an amused tone in Priya’s voice. “That’s nice of you.”

“Priya?”

“Yes, Maya?”

“Shut up.”

* * *

They manage to get to the Comic Center without any sororicidal incidents. Priya takes one look at the clientele and announces that she’ll be waiting in the coffee shop down the street until everyone else arrives. Maya rolls her eyes and lets her go.

There aren’t many customers browsing, since the sign announcing a private function is already up outside, but Stuart’s never been good at shooing people out if they look like they’re going to buy something. Maya walks in and starts pointedly pushing the wide wooden display tables out of the way, up against the wall racks displaying the new editions plus the other merchandise, like Cthulhu plushies and robots, and they take the hint.

“Thanks,” Stuart says once the store is clear. He looks like he still hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in weeks. “I’m kind of terrible at being assertive.”

“You need to watch more _Black Books_.” Maya cups her hands around her mouth. “All right! The shop is closed! Everyone get out!”

Stuart starts laughing. “How do you manage an Irish accent?”

“Same way I manage an American one. I’m good at faking it.” She smirks at Stuart. “Girls have to be.”

The shade of pink that Stuart goes is tremendously hilarious.

They set up the tables and folding chairs, dump bags of chips into bowls and check the dips for freshness by sniffing them.

“Is this meant to smell like Captain Sweatpants?”

“That’s hummus.”

“Oh.” Maya puts it on the table designated for food and makes a mental note to avoid it.

The players start trickling in one by one. Sheldon arrives first, barely nodding to Maya before he goes to sit by the robots and mutter to himself. Leonard and Penny are right behind him and Penny goes to claim a spot sitting on the counter where she can presumably avoid boy germs, or at least unwashed geek boy germs, which is simultaneously horrible stereotyping on Maya’s part and the sad truth. Bernadette and Amy get up there with her when they arrive.

“I didn’t realize everyone was going to bring their girlfriends,” Stuart says, sounding flustered. “I would’ve—”

“Brought yours?”

“What? Oh. No, we broke up ages ago. She said me owning the store wasn’t as cool any more now that I have to live in it as well. No, I was going to say I would’ve catered better.”

Maya opens her mouth to ask him what he’s talking about, living in the store, but Stuart hurries away to mop up a Mountain Dew spill, and she misses her chance.

The other players begin to settle at the tables under Stuart’s direction; he seems to lose a little of his nervousness when he’s got his clipboard in his hand and can tell people exactly where they’re meant to be.

Sheldon sits down for exactly four and a half seconds before he’s back up again. “I thought Wil Wheaton was meant to be coming tonight. Where is he? I _will_ have satisfaction this time.”

Maya starts giggling. She can’t help it. She can hear Penny laughing as well and smiles in her direction; Penny’s got that _did he just say that? Really?_ look on her face.

“Yeah, Sheldon, we know. You’re going to crush on him.” Maya wonders if Sheldon will even notice the extra preposition, he’s so wound up.

He doesn’t. He doesn’t even notice Penny almost fall backward off the counter. His attention is suddenly fixed on a point beyond Maya’s shoulder, and Maya hears Leonard’s chair squeal as he stands up abruptly.

“Oh good, Wil’s here,” Stuart says, blithely oblivious to the fact that Wil just walked in the front door with Priya very close behind him.

“ _Wheaton_ ,” Sheldon and Leonard growl in unison.

“Oh, hey, Sheldon,” Wil says innocently. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to keep you waiting. I ran into this young lady in the coffee shop and she said she was part of tonight’s festivities, so I thought I’d escort her.”

“She doesn’t _need_ escorting,” Leonard snaps, grabbing Priya’s arm and pulling her close. “Priya, don’t talk to him and don’t believe him if he says his grandmother’s dead or – or anything. Just – don’t.”

“Okay,” Priya says slowly. “You’re crazy, but okay.” She kisses Leonard quickly and then goes to join the other girls on the counter, like the cheer squad waiting in the bleachers.

Wil turns to Maya, then, and there’s a scarily avaricious look in his eyes. “What about you then? Do you need a… _partner_ for tonight?”

“She’s _my_ partner,” Sheldon says, at the same time as Stuart says, “Come on, Wil, the draw’s already made up.”

“All right, Stuie, I know how you like things to be orderly.” Wil winks at Maya anyway before going off to his table for the first round. Maya feels vaguely sick, and it’s lucky that Sheldon’s her partner, because if he weren’t she thinks she would probably be out in round one.

* * *

It plays out so that Sheldon and Maya end up against Wil and Stuart.

Of _course_.

Wil slides into the seat opposite Maya and winks at her again. “You know, you look a lot like one of the guys I trounced last year. You could be his sister. You’re not his sister, are you?”

“She’s not his sister, Wil,” Stuart says impatiently. “Draw your cards.”

“They look really alike.”

“Draw your cards.”

“Like, _really_ alike.”

“Draw your damn cards, Wheaton.” Sheldon is talking through teeth gritted so tightly together that he’s going to need a dentist visit if Wil winds him up any more tightly.

Wil smirks at him and makes a point of drawing his cards slowly, sorting them in his hand, and making sure each one is the right way up.

“So, if she’s not his sister – Water Nymph – is she his cousin?”

“Will you knock it off?” Maya realizes she’s the one who’s said it about three seconds after she actually says it. “If you really don’t know who I am, you’re an idiot, and if you do know and you’re pretending you don’t, you’re a jackass.”

Sheldon throws both arms around Maya in a spontaneous hug. Stuart just groans.

“What did you just call me?” Wil’s instantly up and on his toes, leaning across the table, getting right in Maya’s face.

“A jackass.”

“Fine. All right. I know who you are. But believe me, just because you’re a girl now doesn’t mean I’m gonna go easy on you.”

For a second, a single shining second, it seems like everything’s going to be all right. Or as all right as it ever gets when Sheldon’s in this close proximity to Wil Wheaton. They can play this out. Maybe even win.

But then the voice from the back ruins everything.

“It’s not like he’s a _real_ girl anyway.”

Maya gasps, her hand going over her mouth, and the whole crowd goes dead silent for a second. Everyone’s head snaps around towards the source of the voice. Maya stands up, shoving her chair back, and goes up on tiptoe; Sheldon’s already scanning over the heads of the crowd, looking to see who said it.

Whoever it was, it doesn’t matter, because Penny lets out a bloodcurdling yell and makes a truly Wonder Woman-esque leap _over_ the crowd. Everyone goes, “Oooh,” all at once, except for whomever she landed on, who is making squealing noises more often associated with Nebraskan rodeo.

“You go, bestie!” Amy yells.

There’s a thump and a scuffling noise and a high-pitched shriek that could be either Penny or her victim. The crowd surges as the two of them tussle, and Maya sees the way that one of the display stands is tilting too far to the left.

“Careful!”

It’s too late for careful, though. Someone’s flailing foot knocks out the unstable stand of a trestle table, which goes sideways into one of the wooden comic stands, and that dominoes over into the next one, and suddenly everyone’s surging towards the doorway. Maya can hear Stuart yelling and Bernadette screaming and then a hideous creak and consequent sickening thud as one of the plushie displays pulls away from the wall and falls directly towards where she last saw Penny.

Finally the dust clears.

“Penny? Penny!”

A hand reaches out from underneath an oversized Pikachu. Maya hurdles one of the fallen tables to lift the display back up; it’s heavy and she’s glad when Leonard comes to help her.

“Are you okay, Penny?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine. Did he get away? I almost had him tied but he bit me. He was wearing all black. Please tell me he wasn’t _actually_ a vampire.”

“I think we need to get you to a hospital and checked for concussion,” Leonard says.

“Screw that. I need to find that guy and pound his ass.”

“Yeah, but a geek in black? That narrows it down to three-quarters of the players tonight.” Leonard has his arm around her shoulders now, helping her out over the detritus of what was once Pasadena’s finest comic store. Priya hops down from the counter and comes to put Penny’s other arm around her shoulders, and Maya has time to inwardly smile.

“I guess we call this a draw, then?” Wil says. He’s still holding his cards. Stuart’s just staring at the ruins of his store and whimpering quietly.

“A _draw_?” Sheldon puffs up like a rooster. “Are you _serious_?”

“Well, if Stuie and Maya here agree...”

Maya steps over the collapsed table to stand directly in front of him.

And slaps him across the face.

“That’s for hitting on my sister.” Slap. “And that’s for hitting on _me_.”

Wil looks faux-shocked. “Come now, that’s not very sportswomanlike.”

Penny growls. “Lemme go, I wanna show him how sportswomanlike _I_ can be.” The fact that she just pounded the crap out of one guy already and her knees are twitching like they’re iron filings and Wil’s balls are a magnet indicates exactly what her idea of sportswomanship is.

Wil drops his cards and flees.

“I think we win by default,” Sheldon says.

Maya shakes her head. “Sheldon! How can you say that?” She turns to Stuart. “We can all pitch in and have this back to normal by midnight.”

“No.” Stuart’s voice is awfully flat and final. “Just… go. Get Penny to the hospital, or whatever. Go stomp Tokyo. I don’t care. Just get out of my store.”

“But...”

“ _Out_!”

They go, filing out of the door quietly, save for Leonard asking Penny, “What exactly were you going to hogtie him _with_ , anyway?”

Maya stops in the doorway and looks back. Stuart has sunk to his knees amidst the chaos and is slowly picking up the dropped cards one by one. Maya wants to go back, but knows she can’t.

Instead, she turns the Superman sign in the window to “Closed” and quietly shuts the door behind herself.

* * *

She doesn’t sleep very well that night. The anonymous person’s words ring in her ears, but not as loudly as Stuart telling them to get out. At least Priya isn’t there to tell her off for tossing and turning; she went home with Leonard and Sheldon and Penny so that someone would be at Penny’s place to keep an eye on her, even though Penny kept insisting that she was fine.

Maya wishes there were someone here to make sure she’s fine, because she doesn’t think that she is.


	7. I take my time, I put it back (‘til we’re on track)

Maya doesn’t feel much better in the morning. She showers to wake herself up, gets dressed in the nicest outfit she can come up with that she doesn’t mind getting grubby without resorting to her old clothes (most of which are shoved, forgotten, down to one end of the wardrobe), and then leaves a note on the bench for Priya just in case Priya comes home and wonders where she is. She emails Gablehauser and says that she won’t be in, and then she hits the road.

The coffee shop is open and serving breakfast. Maya gets the biggest coffees that they sell, packets of creamer and sugar, and two chocolate muffins bursting with chocolate chips and, therefore, more sugar.

She hopes Stuart isn’t diabetic.

The Superman sign still says “Closed”, but Maya ignores it and pushes the door open anyway. A couple of the display stands have been righted, but mostly the store is still a mess. Stuart’s asleep on the floor, curled up on a pile of old _Jugheads_ that nobody ever wants out of one of the dollar boxes. Maya sets their breakfast down on the counter and then kneels beside him.

“Stuart?”

He startles awake and once again she’s apologizing for scaring him. At least this time he doesn’t have a box cutter handy.

“I thought I told you to get out,” he mumbles, still half asleep.

“You did. Last night. Now I’m back to fix this.”

The smell of coffee gets his attention, and Stuart stumbles to his feet, following his nose over to the counter. He dumps two sugars into one of the cups and stirs it briefly before sipping, his eyes drifting closed again. “You brought me coffee.”

“Yes. And a muffin.”

“Coffee and a muffin. That’s great, Maya. That really compensates for the loss of my livelihood.”

Maya ignores the way a little shiver goes through her when he says her name, and pokes his shoulder. “It’s not _lost_. It’s all right here. We just have to fix it up.”

She leaves Stuart to wake up a little more and walks amongst the mess. It’s not as bad as it initially looks, she thinks; most of the tables can just be lifted back up, and the plushie display needs dusting, but to be honest it sort of needed dusting anyway.

“Just needs a woman’s touch,” she says lightly, returning to the counter to drink some of her own coffee.

“Mmmmhmmm.” Stuart still doesn’t sound fully awake and Maya wonders how late he was up last night.

She starts moving things back into place on her own, starting off with getting the trestle tables and folding chairs out of the way by stacking them near the front of the store. By the time she’s got half the comic tables upright Stuart comes out from his huddle and starts helping her.

“You really didn’t have to do this, you know,” he says an extended uncomfortable silence later, putting the last dollar comics box back in its place.

Maya shrugs and starts putting the spilled comics back. It’s surprisingly easy; they’re all alphabetized and, thanks to their plastic covers, all slid out in order. “I feel like it’s my fault, in a—”

Stuart grabs her wrist and yanks her around to face him. “Don’t you _dare_ say that,” he snaps, and although his tone is the same as last night when he was telling her to get out, his facial expression is quite different. “Just because one transphobic asshole had to speak his stupid damn mind does _not_ make it your fault.”

“But if I hadn’t been here he wouldn’t have said it in the first place.”

“But if you hadn’t been here, the tournament would have been unbalanced.”

“But you would have found someone else.”

Stuart lets go of her wrist and takes a step closer, and Maya feels his hands on her shoulders. They’re shaking. Or she’s shaking. Or both. “But I didn’t _want_ someone else,” he says, and kisses her.

 _Oh_.

She isn’t expecting this the way she was expecting it from Howard, but on the other hand this isn’t breaking any self-imposed code of ethics, and so Maya kisses him back without fear and without shame. Oh, sure, her head’s whirling with questions, some of which she’s going to have to ask Stuart and some she’s going to have to direct towards her therapist instead, but she’s thoroughly caught up in the moment. Stuart’s not as sure of himself as Howard was, so Maya slides her hands around his waist and pulls him a little closer and tries her best to make him understand that this is a good thing.

They finally break apart after a dizzying who knows how long. Time flows differently when you’re kissing. Stuart laughs nervously, which makes Maya giggle.

“I feel like I’m in a romantic comedy,” she says.

Stuart wrinkles his nose. “Please. Can’t we at least be the Doctor and Rose?”

Maya is hard pressed not to giggle again at the thoughts that conjures up. “I thought you were more of a Fourth Doctor man.”

“Really? How’d you know?”

“Your New Year’s party.”

“You _noticed_?”

Maya tactfully does not say it was because of the six-yard-long scarf that she nearly tripped over thanks to not being able to see her own feet past the stupid Aquaman costume and just nods, which earns her a bright smile and another kiss and for that she’d tell him she noticed anything, like how he peels the paper off his muffin to eat the bottom first, and how he’s got exactly the right sort of fingers to be an artist, and all sorts of things that would land them right back in romantic comedy territory.

They hurry to finish getting the comics back into place, and in the end the only casualties of the night before (aside from whatever damage Penny inflicted before her victim escaped) are a handful of comics either ripped or covered in hummus, and one pathetic little plushie that Maya doesn’t recognize, a little black pig with a tear down his snout. She holds it up and raises an inquisitive eyebrow at Stuart, who laughs a little more confidently.

“You should keep that one as a memento.”

“What’s it from?”

“Ranma ½. Have you seen it?”

“No,” Maya says, although the name does ring a bell, and a fairly loud one at that.

“We’ll have to watch it together sometime.”

“It’s a date.”

“Oh God, now we’re back to being in a romantic comedy.”

Maya catches his hand and pulls him closer. “So? Would you rather be in a horror movie? Because I promise you, we’d both be dead by the end of the first act.” She snags her bag off the counter and puts her little black pig into it.

“Fair point,” Stuart concedes. “Where are we going?”

“Lunch.”

“We just had breakfast.”

“That was two hours and about a zillion comics ago.” Maya bounces on her toes. “Come on, let’s go.”

“This really _is_ a date.”

“You catch on fast.”

“So, if we’re in a romantic comedy, what tropes do we have to watch out for? I’m not all that familiar with the genre,” Stuart says as they step out of the store and into the cool sunlight.

Maya knows that she says something in response, but in all honesty, she has no idea what she’s saying. Her prose is probably so purple it’s lavender, but Stuart’s hand is warm, and he’s curled those artist’s fingers around hers, and right now?

Right now, she’s so happy she could die.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [stars in our eyes (all through the night)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/210428) by [Lauren (notalwaysweak)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notalwaysweak/pseuds/Lauren)




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